October 20, 2004

Finally, I got around to finishing the last chapter of Dylan's autobiography. I was blogging at the blistering pace of a chapter a day for a while. Chapter 1 is here (and here's the text of Chapter 1 on the publisher's website (via Metafilter)). Chapter 2 is here, and Chapter 3 is here. I kept up at a post a day but not a chapter a day with the first part of Chapter 4 here, and the second part of Chapter 4 here. Now, I've let four days go by, only reading a few pages a day. But this post covers all of Chapter 5.

Why Dylan liked Neil Sedaka more than other big New York songwriters: he performed his own songs. P. 227.

Dylan seems to have gotten some ideas from Harry Truman, whom his parents took him to see when he was a kid: "Truman was gray hatted, a slight figure, spoke in the same kind of nasal twang and tone like a country singer. I was mesmerized by his slow drawl and sense of seriousness and how people hung on every word he was saying." Pp. 230-231.

Dylan and guns: "As kids, we shot air guns, BB guns and the real thing--.22s--shot at tin cans, bottles or overfed rats in the town garbage dump." P. 232. He explains "rubberguns" and how the introduction of synthetic rubber ruined all the fun. Pp. 232-233.

Description of folk music: "It was life magnified." P. 236.

What Woody Guthrie's voice was like: "a stiletto." P. 244.

How Woody Guthrie writes: "like the whirlwind." P. 245.

Goal Dylan set: "to be Guthrie's greatest disciple." 246.

How the goal was thwarted: he found out Jack Elliot had already done it. P. 250.

What Dylan thought of asking John Wayne when he met him, but didn't because it "would have been crazy": "why some of his cowboy films were better than others." P. 250.

Description of Joan Baez: "Both Scot and Mex, she looked like a religious icon, like somebody you'd sacrifice yourself for and she sang in a voice straight to God ..." P. 255.

Anti-fallout shelter song he wrote early on at his handmade table: "Let Me Die in My Footsteps." P. 270-272. That reminds me, obvious as it is now, when I was an adolescent in the early 60s, I couldn't understand why my parents weren't building a fallout shelter.

How people felt about Communists in northern Minnesota: "People weren't scared of them, seemed to be a big to-do over nothing." P. 271.

Dylan's description of himself as a child in Duluth, listening to foghorns: "slight, introverted and asthma stricken." P. 274.

Dylan song I'm reminded of by his description of trying to learn a lot about songwriting from "Pirate Jenny": "When the Ship Comes In."
Singer Dylan thought was great--he was right--but couldn't get other folksingers--like Dave Van Ronk--to care about: Robert Johnson. Pp. 282-283.

Now, I'm liberal, but to a degree
I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy!
I wouldn't let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.

A Bob Dylan political opinion: "I wasn't that comfortable with all the psycho polemic babble. It wasn't my particular feast of food. Even the current news made me nervous. I liked the old news better." P. 283.